


Who We Are

by LinaRai



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Amnesia, Amnesiac Castiel (Supernatural), Angst with a Happy Ending, Attempt at Humor, Canon-Typical Violence, Destiel Reverse Bang | Dean/Cas Reverse Bang (Supernatural), Fix-It, Human Castiel (Supernatural), M/M, Post-Episode: s15e19 Inherit the Earth, but he has a selection of novelty t-shirts so it's okay i guess, but it is fixed eventually, i mean there's trauma first, this really is poor cas having an identity crisis for 17k words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 08:07:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 17,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29898123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LinaRai/pseuds/LinaRai
Summary: It was supposed to be easy: barge into the Empty, rescue Cas, confess his love, be back in time for dinner.The man Dean rescued was not the Cas he knew.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester, Kaia Nieves/Claire Novak
Comments: 18
Kudos: 41
Collections: Dean/Cas Reverse Bang 2021





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is the longest thing I have ever written by far - it was only supposed to be 10k (still beating my record) but here we are much later. Thank you so much to [QQ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovemuppet/pseuds/lovemuppet) for the gorgeous artwork (and teaching me how to put it in a fic) and to my lovely beta, Amandine, who helped point out I wrote "feeling" three times in one sentence. Don't write at 1am, kids.

Dean Winchester spent an unusually large amount of his time in graveyards. This one, unlike most, had special significance. Of course he knew his mother wasn’t still buried there, but her headstone remained, a last reminder of her life.

If this went well, he supposed, maybe it would be special for a different reason.

Ignoring the usual sting that accompanied the reminder of his mother’s death, Dean quickly got to work. He had spent months trying to find what he wanted; wasting away the days with unconsciousness and dealing with yesterday’s hangover, and the nights researching until he reached the bottom of the next liquor bottle. One day, he found it. It was a relatively simple spell, too. Simple enough that Dean could do it without telling Sam where he was going or what he was up to. In his opinion, the kid worried about him enough as it was.

So Dean went to the graveyard on his own, and he completed the relatively simple spell on his own, and when the portal opened up in front of him he took his angel blade and he entered the Empty on his own.

It was darker than Dean could ever imagine, a kind of impenetrable darkness so black and vast without the promise of a horizon that it overwhelmed him for a moment. The only surface in sight was the floor, which rippled and distorted Dean’s reflection as he took a tentative step forward.

He wasn’t dead. The universe hadn’t been ripped apart. It was time for him to continue his mission.

Stepping shakily forward, angel blade grasped tightly in his fist (although what good it would do, Dean wasn’t sure) he refused to let himself think about _after._ He was here on a rescue mission, because that was what they did. He was a Winchester. Even the monsters knew that he valued family far above his own life.

“Cas?” he cautiously called out, starting to move a bit faster. He wasn’t sure exactly how long the portal would be open and he definitely didn’t want to get trapped here. “Cas!”

And then, there was the distant reply. “Dean?”

He was running now, desperate to see him again, _his angel,_ the doorway back to Lawrence the only measure of distance. “Cas? Where are you?”

“Dean?” replied the familiar voice, closer this time, and all of a sudden he was standing right in front of him. Dean never stopped running, ploughing straight into the surprised angel, tears streaming down his face.

“Cas,” was the only word Dean could form and it felt like home on his lips. “Cas, we’ve got to go, there isn’t much time.”

“Dean? How are you here? What’s going on?” Cas demanded, but his terrifying angel-of-the-Lord voice wasn’t as effective when he was clinging to Dean like he was his last lifeline. Which, in a way, he supposed he was.

“I’ll explain later. Look, we’ve got to go. This might hurt a little, I’m sorry, man,” he apologised, before raising the angel blade.

Cas’ eyes widened and he moved to take a step back, never removing his fist from its death grip on Dean’s wrist. “Do you trust me?” Dean asked, and Cas didn't even hesitate before he nodded.

Cas’ grace shone blindingly in the darkness of the Empty, a thin ribbon of silvery-blue which arced through the air into the small glass vial Dean had brought with him. It looked like mercury, sliding around as Dean fumbled the lid on in time to catch Cas as he collapsed.

“Come on buddy, we’re nearly there.” He picked the former angel up bridal style, shoving the vial in his pocket, and he ran. His arms ached and his legs screamed and he was gasping for air but the portal was right there, it’s _right there,_ and it’s pulsing and fading and they were both gonna get trapped there forever. Dean started to think that maybe that wouldn’t be so bad, at least they would be together, but he pushed even harder, sprinted even faster, throwing himself through the doorway at the last possible moment, tripping over his own feet and ending up with his face in the dirt.

He lay there for a moment, face down on some poor guy’s grave, and he laughed a full, rich laugh that he didn’t recognise as his own.

Eventually, he rolled over to face the sky, a wide grin on his face. It was finally time for _after_. “Hey, you never gave me the chance to say it, man. I love you too, dumbass.”

Cas didn’t respond.

Dean sat up a little too abruptly, wincing at his bruised joints. “Cas?”

Cas looked up at Dean, his brows furrowed as if in deep thought. Blood ran down one side of his temple, a matching stain on the headstone beside him.

“I’m sorry, who are you?” he asked, before collapsing into the graveyard dirt.


	2. Chapter 2

Somewhere in the distance, he can hear beeping. He is dimly aware that he should probably find this annoying, but the regular noise is slowly bringing him back to himself, gradually dragging his soul back into his body. Every single muscle seems to ache - his head especially - but there’s a coarse hand entwined in his and he feels warm and safe for a moment.

The second of peace is abruptly shattered when he realises that he doesn’t know _who_ is holding his hand. Snatching it away, he sits up suddenly, his eyes flaring open in panic and a pained gasp escaping his lips.

“Hey, hey, Cas, it’s okay, it’s okay,” the man sitting by his side reassures him, rubbing his eyes. He looks exhausted, his eyes rimmed red with purple bruises underneath.

“Where am I?” he asks in return, lying back down in an attempt to get his head to stop spinning.

The man grins down at him. “Hospital, dude. You got a concussion, and we weren’t sure after the whole rescue thing. Sammy thought it best to make sure, y’know?”

“Sammy?” 

The man’s smile slowly vanishes. “Sam? My brother?”

“Do I know you?” he asks, before suddenly realising he doesn’t even know himself.

“Shit. Uh, I’m gonna go get the nurse, okay? I’ll be quick, I swear.” All but sprinting out the room, he watches as the stranger disappears from his sight.

Shutting his eyes, he desperately tries to remember how he got here. When he can’t find the answer, he pictures the man by his bedside in his mind, searching for a name. _Sammy,_ he thinks, turning the name over in his memory. Nothing.

He can’t even remember his own name. What had the man called him? Cas?

A few minutes later, he hears a commotion in the hallway. “What do you mean I can’t go in? He’s family!” the man shouts. The doctor’s reply is quieter, so he can’t hear what is said, but she enters the room alone a few seconds later, so it must have worked.

“Hello,” she says kindly, shutting the door firmly behind her. “My name is Dr. Aros. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

He nods.

“Alrighty then! Please can I have your name?”

He waits the length of ten long blinks. “Uh, I’m not sure.”

She frowns, but her voice remains resolutely chipper. “Okay. Can you tell me your date of birth?”

He shakes his head.

“The current president?” 

“No idea.”

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

He considers the question for a moment. “I don’t really know. I suppose it would be me waking up in the hospital a few minutes ago.”

Frowning, she hurriedly scribbles something down in her notes. “Okie dokie, then. I’m gonna have a quick chat with your friend outside, ‘kay? We should be able to figure something out, and I’m sure you’ll have your memory back in no time, so don’t worry about it, alright?”

She’s still scrawling notes as she hurries from the room, leaving him alone with his thoughts once more. It was a strange thing, he decided, to not know who he was. All he knows is what he can see and what has been mentioned, and even that isn’t enough to give him the vaguest idea about who he used to be. 

But that’s just it, isn’t it? How likely is it that he will regain all his memories? What if he stays this way forever? There are clearly people who care about him - he knows enough to realise that it isn’t normal to fall asleep holding someone’s hand in a hospital - but what if he isn’t the man who they knew? All he can hope for is that his ‘friend’ outside and this Sammy will look after him for long enough that he can get his footing back. 

Dr. Aros comes back a few minutes later, the stranger on her heels. “I’m afraid you have a fairly serious case of retrograde amnesia,” she explains, before gesturing to the man. “Do you remember him?

He shakes his head apologetically. The man’s whole body sags, like all his bones have turned to jelly, and he rubs his coarse hand over his face. 

“Well, I’ll let him introduce himself, okay? You lived together before your accident, so he’ll be here to look after you and try and help jog your memory. I believe some photos are on their way?” she asks him, and he nods.

“Yeah, my brother’s coming up and he’s stopping at our place to get some.”

“Alrighty then! Sounds good. I’ll leave you two to get reacquainted then.” With that, she exits the room, already flipping to another patient’s notes.

There is an awkward silence for a moment as the man rakes his eyes over his hospital bed, fiddling with his hands. “Nothing’s ever easy, huh?” he mutters, plopping down into the chair next to his bed.

“What’s my name?” he asks, hating how small his voice sounds.

“Cas. Uh, Castiel,” he answers, adding, “and I’m Dean.”

_Castiel. Cass-tee-ell._ “That’s a strange name,” he says, although he’s not entirely sure what he’s basing that opinion on.

The man - Dean - drags his hands over his face again, pulling his cheeks down as he does. For a moment, he looks like a ghost; his eyes seem sunken into their sockets and the bags under his eyes look like ink.

“So, no memories at all?” Cas shook his head. “Okay. That’s...fine. It’s fine. We’ll work it out.”

{o0o}

Cas had suspected that there was a reason neither Dean nor his ridiculously tall brother Sam would tell him much about where they lived, but he hadn’t expected the reason to be the fact they lived in a huge underground bunker. Especially one decorated like it was straight out of the 1950s that was bustling with a number of other people also living there.

Looking around in amazement, his eyes grew wider and his eyebrows raised higher with every new item he spots. He finds that he knows what some of these things are; a ornamental silver knife from the 1800s, a book on angel mythology that he somehow knows is only half correct, a bottle of whiskey delivered as a peace offering. 

His eyes come to rest on the table in the middle of the library and the names etched into it. 

_S.W. D.W. M.W. CASTIEL. JACK._

Tracing his fingers over the scratches, he allows the familiar ache of emptiness to wash over him. It snakes through his veins, coursing through his body and turning his muscles to lead. He knows it’s his name - Dean told him it was - but he doesn’t remember it being carved. He doesn’t recognise any of the other names and couldn't decipher their meaning by himself. And yet, he is still brimming with an emotion he can’t even put a name to.

Cas knows nothing of these people. He will never know their history, will never know why their names - why _his name_ \- is carved into a library table. Perhaps it contained some kind of deeper meaning; something to be remembered by long after their deaths. He thinks that maybe he can understand that. He ignores the look of absolute pain on Dean’s face, simply removing his wandering fingers and twisting them into his sleeves instead.

“They’re our family,” Sam explains, answering the question Cas didn’t dare ask. “Sam and Dean Winchester, our mother Mary, and our friends… our family.”

A single sentence runs through Cas’ mind: _Dean Winchester is saved._

Dean lets out a noise that is close to a choked sob. “I need a beer,” he announces thickly, all but running from the room. Cas watches as he disappears around the corner, other people jumping out of the way as he barrels past them.

“He’ll come around,” Sam insists, but Cas isn’t quite so sure.


	3. Chapter 3

The two men are perfectly polite and civil to him (well, he gets the feeling that this is as civil as Dean gets, anyhow), but Cas can tell that they were weirded out by the whole situation. Which was reasonable, given the circumstances, but still left him feeling like he was somehow intruding.

He asks questions, at first, and Sam does his best to give a satisfying answer while also clearly hiding something. If there was anything Cas has learnt in the brief time he had been living with them, it was that the Winchesters were excellent liars. It was as if some deep instinct within him could tell; an intrinsic lie detector that only worked on the two brothers and left him feeling nauseous every time he caught them.

Cas quickly stops asking questions.

He falls into life in the bunker surprisingly fast, making a list of rules and observations in his head. For example, Dean will never look him in the eyes unless he’s drunk, which is most nights. All the other people in the bunker - Cas doesn’t bother with names, but they all seem to know him - look to Sam for direction, so he’s almost always rushing from one place to another. Cas spends most of his time wandering from room to room, flicking through ancient books and lying in the bed they had assigned him, staring blankly at the ceiling.

He’s been there two days when he’s first introduced to Eileen, and suddenly life in the bunker isn’t quite as lonely.

Eileen is the only person that treats Cas normally. Unlike Dean, she will look him in the eyes. Unlike Sam, she isn’t overly concerned for his health. Unlike everyone else, she doesn’t whisper about him as he walks through the corridor. She talks to him about things other than his amnesia, doesn’t hesitate to answer his questions, and if she can’t - or won’t - answer something, she simply says as much.

Cas immediately likes her.

“Why do you all live in an underground bunker?” he asks her one day. “I know I’m no expert, but even I think that’s weird.” 

“It was built by an old organisation called the Men of Letters,” Eileen explains. “Everyone here works for them, in a way. Although we’ve updated their so-called ‘code’ since the 1950s, believe me.”

Cas is quiet for a moment, turning this piece of information over in his head like he does so often these days. He’s constantly scared that any piece of information he gains might be lost at any moment, so he’s extra careful to make sure he remembers things. “What do you actually do?”

Eileen thinks about this question. “I can’t really tell you,” she says, in the end. “But I think I can probably tell you that we’re called hunters.”

“What do you hunt?” he asks, but Eileen is looking away, and he doesn’t bother repeating the question.

{o0o}

Every day, after most of the hunters go to sleep, Sam sits down with Cas at the library table and shows him something that he hopes will jog his memory. On the first try, he showed him photos.

“We don’t have that many of you,” Sam explains, sliding one of Cas and Dean sat on a car hood. “Sorry.”

Cas shakes his head. He doesn’t recognise it. He doesn’t recognise the next one, or the one after that, or any of the ones of Dean and Sam together.

“I’ll find something else,” Sam promises. “We’ll get you to remember something, I swear.”

The second try is a selection of items that apparently used to belong to Cas. The first is an oddly shaped knife, which Sam explains is something called an ‘angel blade’. He says that it maybe looks familiar, and he isn’t lying, but his memory doesn’t suddenly reappear, so it’s still not what he would describe as a successful evening.

By the third attempt, Sam is clearly struggling to come up with more things that could possibly trigger Cas’ memory. “The doctor said we couldn’t tell you your memories outright, but I thought maybe I could just try telling you some names to see if you recognise them?”

Cas shakes his head. “It’s pointless. None of this is working.”

Sam slumps in his seat, the overly cheery smile gone from his face. “We’ve gotta keep trying, right?”

“Maybe not today,” Cas replies, and he disappears to his room for the rest of the evening.

{o0o}

Cas is woken in the middle of the night to three sharp knocks on his door. Yawning, he shuffles his way over and yanks it open, but there’s no one in sight. At his feet, however, there’s a cardboard box.

Frowning, he carefully picks it up, and with a final glance either way to make sure no one is there, he retreats back into his room, closing the door behind him.

Light floods the room and blinds him for a moment as he snaps on the lamp, so he waits for his eyes to adjust before gently removing the lid. He’s not sure why, but it’s like he can tell that it has some kind of special significance. It feels like he’s standing on a precipice, about to fall and not sure where he’ll land.

At the top of the box, covering the contents, there is a coat. Cas shakes it out carefully, holding it up. It’s old, that’s for sure, musty and covered in dust and stains. He can’t help but feel like he recognises it though, and before he can analyse what exactly he is doing, he’s pulled the trench coat over his arms. 

He’s filled with an unspeakable sense of _right -_ a feeling he can never remember experiencing. The weight is familiar on his arms, and even though he can’t recall ever wearing the coat, it is undoubtedly his.

The rest of the box is empty, the coat the only occupant, but Cas can’t help but suspect there is more to this than is immediately obvious. Almost unconsciously, his hand travels to an inside pocket that he hadn’t knowingly noticed, and to his surprise, there is another item in there. It’s jammed in quite tightly, and even though the coat is pretty much ruined, he still doesn’t want to damage it any further, so it takes a bit of wiggling and tugging to pull the item free.

Cas is left holding a mixtape. _Deans top 13 zepp TRAXX,_ it reads, and he suddenly has an idea of who delivered the box to his door.

_“It’s a gift. You keep those.”_ Dean’s voice echoes in his ears, and he is struck with an unexpected wall of longing that passes in an instant.

It may be the middle of the night, but Cas is sure there has to be a cassette player somewhere in this maze of tiled walls, and he’s not going to sleep until he finds it.

When Sam comes in to check on him in the morning, he doesn’t expect to find Cas sprawled across the top of his bed, wrapped in a long forgotten trench coat with a cassette player tucked in beside him. Shaking his head, he carefully drapes a blanket over him and closes the door softly when he leaves. Cas deserves some rest.

{o0o}

Cas can’t quite put a number on the list of things he doesn’t remember for obvious reasons, but every day he manages to realise that he doesn’t know something else about himself. Today, since most of the hunters are out doing whatever they don’t want him to know, he allows himself the luxury of a longer shower. With the time to finally linger, Cas decides to inspect every inch of his skin in the mirror.

Littered across his hands and arms and shoulder blades and stomach there are a hundred scars, a dot-to-dot of a story that Cas can’t remember. He runs a finger over each of them in turn, wondering how each of them had come to be. It’s strange, he thinks, to be carved with scars that someone else earned.

When he eventually makes his way into the kitchen, it’s almost midday. He’s not sure what makes him do it, but when he hears voices, he stops outside the doorway, holding his breath to listen in.

“Why didn’t you give him them earlier?” Sam asks, annoyance lacing his tone.

“Because they aren’t his!” Dean is whispering, but his anger still poisons his tone and turns it into a shout. “I don’t know who that is, but it sure as Hell ain’t our Cas.”

“You’ve got to stop taking it out on him. It’s not his fault.”

“Whatever. I’ve got to get out of here. Don’t you have a fuckton of black-eyed shits to deal with?”

Sam hesitates. “Yes, but-”

“Great. I’ll pack a bag.”

Cas barely manages to scramble back around a corner before Dean storms out of the room, barging past him without a second glance.

Cas suddenly decides he isn’t hungry after all.

{o0o}

A few hours later, Eileen is patiently teaching Cas some sign language when the bunker door creaks open. “Hey, bitches!” a woman’s voice announces, and Cas looks up, surprised.

Before he can register what’s going on, a blonde girl has launched herself into his arms. “Cas! I thought you were dead, Dean said that he was gonna try and get you back but he was such a mess and Sam seemed so focused on his hunter thing so I honestly didn’t think he’d be able to-”

“Claire,” Eileen says sternly, and the girl unlatches herself. There’s a look of utter confusion on her face, as if she is suddenly realising that Cas never hugged back.

“What’s going on?” she asks. Even though she keeps her eyes on Cas the whole time, Eileen answers for him.

“Uh, Cas lost his memories. He only remembers about the last week, after the accident.”

“Oh,” Claire responds, her smile slowly draining away. “Right. Sorry, then.”

“No, I’m sorry,” Cas countered sadly. “I can see how much this is hurting everyone… I wish I could remember you.”

“It’s not your fault,” Eileen insists. “Claire, Dean’s out but Sam’s in the kitchen. Maybe go and find him?”

Claire nods silently and walks off, glancing over her shoulder twice as she goes.

“It’s really not your fault,” Eileen repeats, but it doesn’t seem to matter much, did it? Everyone who seemed to know him was still hurt, carrying the burden of a shared history by themselves.

Maybe it is time for him to move on.


	4. Chapter 4

The problem Cas encounters when he decides to pack his bags and move out is that he owns nearly nothing, and he finds it’s rather hard to pack a bag that he doesn’t own. He’s practically inside the wardrobe, sure that there has to be something resembling a backpack in there, when Sam walks in.

“Cas? What are you doing?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

Struggling to extricate himself from the tangle of hangers which cling to him like claws, Cas mumbles, “nothing,” in response.

Sam eyes the pile of borrowed clothing on the bed, the trench coat folded neatly on top. “It doesn’t look like nothing.”

Cas sighs, finally turning around to face Sam. There’s no point lying, he supposes. He’s about to tell Sam that he’s leaving and politely ask if there is a bag he could use, but he’s interrupted by voices in the hallway.

“It’s not my fault!”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know! What did you want me to say? Call you up and say, ‘oh, hey Claire, you know the dude possessing your dead dad? Well I rescued him but he lost all his memories in the process.”

Cas is almost certain that neither Dean nor Claire know whose room they’re standing outside of (not that anything they’re saying makes any sense). Sam seems to reach the same conclusion, throwing the door open and glaring at the pair outside. “Can I talk to you both in the kitchen for a minute?”

They both stare at him, barely concealing their simmering anger. Dean storms off down the hallway, Claire sparing a single disgusted look at Cas before following him.

“I’m not done talking to you, either,” Sam threatens, pointing at him sternly. “Let me just deal with these two first.”

Cas sits on his bed, feeling like a severely told-off toddler. He considers his options; he can continue packing not-his clothes into a non-existent bag, he can put them all back in the unusually roomy wardrobe, or he can just sit here on his bed surrounded by piles of clothes and wait for Sam to come back. He opts for the latter.

To be honest, he’s surprised at the amount of time it takes for Sam to return. Ever since he arrived in the bunker, he’s never quite felt like he’s at home. It’s like a part of him had always been ready for his inevitable exit, like he had never been welcome here, as much as Eileen and Sam had tried to tell him that this was his home too.

When Sam does eventually come back, he announces his arrival with, “You’re moving out.”

Well, Cas can’t say he was expecting Sam to be so blunt about it. “Okay.”

“Jody’s agreed to let you stay at an old hunting lodge that she owns and doesn’t use anymore, so Dean’s gonna drive you both up in a little bit. If that’s okay with you, of course?”

Cas blinks at him. “Dean’s coming?”

Sam scratches the back of his head. “Yeah, he took some convincing from me and Eileen. And Jody. And Donna. And I think Garth even texted him at one point.”

“Oh.” Cas wasn’t expecting that, if he’s being honest. Dean can hardly stand the sight of him, so he can’t imagine him agreeing to move out with him. Cas supposed it didn’t really matter, and it might even be better, having someone with him. “There’s just one thing I need.”

“Yeah, sure, anything,” Sam agrees quickly. Clearly he was expecting some more opposition.

“Do you have a bag I can borrow?”

{o0o}

The drive, as Cas expected, was probably the most awkward thing he had ever experienced (well, that he could remember, anyway). They drove in complete silence for the first two hours, any weak attempt at conversation that Cas could think of being immediately shot down. Dean, it seemed, was not happy with this turn of events, even if he had agreed to move out.

This, however, meant Cas was left alone with his thoughts. It wasn’t a permanent solution, he decided, as the trees and signposts and miles disappeared in the rearview mirror. One day, this Jody who he supposedly knew would need her cabin back, and then what would happen? Clearly, his time at the bunker had shown Cas that he couldn’t stay there forever. As it was, Dean could hardly look at him, and that wasn’t any way to live. For now, Sam and Eileen and his friends could convince Dean not to throw Cas out on the streets, but he had a suspicion that that was more out of pity and a desperation for their friend back than anything else. One day, they would realise that the person they once knew was gone for good, and then… well, there’d be no need to keep his doppelganger around, surely.

That was the other thing that was bothering Cas; exactly how likely was it for him to regain his memory? Sure, sometimes he felt emotions attached to objects he had no recollection of - the trench coat feeling familiar, and the almost unbearable pining that had hit him while listening to the mixtape - but that was about it. Maybe a few fuzzy things slipped through, but they confused him more than anything. The chances of him remembering everything felt slimmer with every day that went by.

Eventually, Dean caves a little, and after a halfway gas stop, he gruffly holds out a box of tapes for Cas to pick. Cas hesitates, before slipping his hand into the inside pocket of his coat instead.

“Can we listen to this one?” he asks tentatively, offering _Deans top 3 zepp TRAXX_.

Dean takes one glance at it, swallows hard, and then grabs a tape at random from the box. “How ‘bout I introduce you to, uh… AC/DC instead?”

Cas doesn’t push the issue, and they spend the rest of the journey listening to Dean’s music, the mixtape resting against his heart.

{o0o}

Jody’s cabin is surprisingly nice. There’s a small town nearby, but it’s far enough away to feel isolated while still having the convenience of a shop only a half an hour drive away. They decide to stop in the town tomorrow, so they can go straight to sleep tonight.

As soon as they’re through the door, the key not placed in the plant pot as promised but not too hard to find, Dean immediately heads for the far room, shutting the door behind him and locking it with a telltale click. It occurs to Cas that Dean has probably been here before. Either that, or he is desperate to get away from the awkward atmosphere they’d shared in the car.

Sighing, Cas sticks his head through the doors of the other rooms, giving himself a quick tour. There’s one other guest bedroom which he places his borrowed bag in the corner of, a fairly modern kitchen, a small office which contains nothing but an ancient computer and a dusty bookshelf, a cosy living area and a small bathroom. Cas shuts himself into the latter, stopping only to grab a towel from the cluttered cupboard in the guest room. He’s found, in the week or so he can remember, that he really loves hot showers. The bunker has much better water pressure than the cabin, but it still helps him to relax anyway.

By the time he’s changed into his loaned pajamas, Dean still hasn’t left his room. Just in case he’s still awake, Cas tentatively calls out a goodnight, before retreating back into the room he’s staying in. 

It hits him, as he lies awake in the darkness, that maybe this is what life is. Maybe you just drift from one place to another, forever dreaming of an unreachable place called ‘home’. In any case, he doesn’t remember, so he allows himself to sink into unconsciousness, dreaming of a neverending blackness and cosmic battles beyond his comprehension.

{o0o}

When Cas wakes in the morning, it’s to the sound of angry clattering, followed by a loud crash and several curse words. Groaning and rubbing his face, he quickly gets out of bed and follows the string of swears to the kitchen. Dean is sitting on the floor, his face in his hands, what looks like every single pot and pan strewn on the floor around him.

“Are you alright?” Cas asks, concerned, and Dean jumps.

“Yeah, I just…” He gestures at the mess. “I was trying to see if we had anything for breakfast.”

Cas raises his eyebrows, but doesn’t say anything. Instead, he silently starts picking up the (now slightly dented) pots, passing them to Dean, who puts them back in the cupboard they belong in. In only a few minutes, they manage to clean up the whole kitchen.

“Jody’s gonna kill us for putting all her shit in the wrong place,” Dean comments, scuffing the floor with his shoe.

“Probably,” Cas replies. “How do you think she’ll do it?”

Dean cocks his head, as if considering the question seriously for a moment. “Poison. Just to be dramatic.”

Neither of them can keep from smiling, and for a moment, they meet each other’s eyes. Cas thinks that maybe it’s the first time Dean has done that since his accident, but it doesn’t last long. Dean clears his throat, his attention back on an invisible spot on the floor.

“So… did you find any breakfast?” Cas inquires at last, and Dean shakes his head.

“We’re gonna have to go grocery shopping, unless we want to starve.”

Grocery shopping, Cas discovers, isn’t as bad as everyone makes it sound. Since Dean offered to do all the cooking - “I wouldn’t trust you in my kitchen with your memory,” - there’s not much reason for Cas to actually be there, other than to give his occasional input on what meals to have. They seem to have reached some kind of truce after cleaning up the kitchen together, a tentative step in the right direction. Dean still won’t look him in the eyes, still insists on buying an excessive amount of alcohol, but at least he has moved away from actively avoiding him.

They’re walking back to the car with their shopping when Dean spots the clothes store and grinds to a halt. He looks a confused Cas up and down, evaluating him, before tugging him by the sleeve across the street.

“You should get your own clothes,” Dean explains, taking the shopping off him. “You can’t wear my old shit and Sammy’s giant flannels for the rest of your life.”

When Cas hesitates, Dean shoves him through the open door, only a step behind him. “Go on.”

The shop doesn’t seem to sell any one particular style of clothes; there are racks of women’s and men’s clothes mixed together, everything from t-shirts and jeans to wedding dresses and glittery suit jackets. Cas wanders down the aisles, his fingers trailing over the fabric of the assorted shirts and jumpers. He stops, his hand hovering over a hanger, and Dean takes pity on him and grabs it, holding it up against him. It’s a grey cardigan, soft and worn, and it looks like it would fit him perfectly.

Dean's eyes look like they water up, but Cas can’t be sure.

“Anything else?” he asks, and they continue looking, their hands nearly brushing as they sort through the hangers.

By the time they get home, it’s nearly lunchtime and both Dean and Cas are starving. Dean heads straight for the kitchen, muttering about the food going off, and Cas hovers in the hallway, not sure whether to follow. In the end, he goes back into the guest room and finally starts to unpack.

The clothes he had brought with him suddenly seemed lifeless. The oversized flannels and ancient hoodies and stained jeans (was that blood?) were out of place, a reminder of the life he had lost. In a moment of clarity, Cas shoves them back into the borrowed duffel bag and jams it into the back of the musty wardrobe, deciding to hang up his new clothes instead. From their little shopping expedition, he had gained the grey jumper, two pairs of jeans that weren’t stained and looked like they would actually fit him, and a selection of t-shirts with slogans that made Dean laugh. He hangs each of them up with the utmost care, making sure none of them are crumpled, before gently shutting the wardrobe door and sitting on the bed. He’s staring off into space, eyes fixed on a damp spot on the ceiling, when Dean’s voice startles him.

“Hey, I made nachos. You want some?”

Cas blinks, looking up at him in surprise. “Nachos?”

“Tell me you remember nachos,” Dean says, horrified and already reaching over to drag him into the kitchen. Cas wonders if this is a thing that the previous Cas and Dean did a lot; it seems to be a habit for Dean to latch onto Cas’ nearest sleeve in order to direct him anywhere.

“Yes, I remember what nachos are. I don’t remember what they taste like, though,” Cas clarifies, allowing himself to be pulled along.

“You had me worried for a moment,” Dean grinned, clapping his hand on Cas’ shoulder.

Suddenly, the room around him disappears. Cas is standing in the trench coat that he knows is hung on the back of his door, a suit underneath it. Instead of the cabin around him, there is an empty road, bright lights warding against the darkness of the night. A hand lands on his shoulder, and Dean - a much younger, a much happier Dean - grins up at him. “Don’t ever change,” he says, staring straight into what feels like Cas’ soul.

Then, the road and the younger Dean disappear, and Cas is back in Jody’s kitchen, sitting with his back against a cabinet.

“Are you alright?” Dean asks, one arm outstretched to Cas, hesitating in its movement.

Cas swallows, trying to push the memory down, and nods. “Low blood sugar, I think.”

It surprises him how fast the lie comes. Perhaps his time with the Winchesters has taught him more than he thought.

{o0o}

When Cas walks past Dean’s ajar door that evening, he knows it’s wrong to stop and peek, but some deep rooted curiosity overtakes him and he hesitates in the hallway, craning his neck to get a better look. Dean, to his amazement, is sitting on his knees, his eyes shut and his hands pressed together, praying.

“So, please. Come on, surely you owe us this? Compensation for all the shit we’ve gone through? And I know I wasn’t always the nicest to ya, but… please.” His voice breaks, and he shakes his head, staring up at the ceiling even though his eyes are still closed. The light above him seems to frame his face, illuminating it like some kind of manufactured halo. “Please. For me. Just… bring him back. Uh, amen, or whatever.”

Dean hesitates, like he’s expecting a response.

“I’m too old for this,” he grumbles, dropping his face into the mattress. Cas takes that as his cue to quickly retreat to the guest bedroom and pretend he saw nothing.


	5. Chapter 5

Cas wakes the next morning to a light knock on his door.

“Hey, uh, Claire and Kaia said they wanted to drop by in about an hour. That okay with you?” Dean calls, sounding genuinely unsure.

“Mmm,” Cas hums back sleepily.

The door cracks open an inch, a rectangle of light hitting Cas squarely in the face. He squints blearily up at Dean, who clearly finds his drowsiness amusing. “Come on, you’ve gotta get dressed.”

Twenty minutes later, Cas is wearing the first of his many new shirts (it reads _‘bacon: you either like it or you’re wrong’_ , and Dean can’t stop grinning at it) and is glaring into the cup of coffee Dean made him. 

“They’re nice kids, but Claire’s taking this kinda hard, so be nice, ‘kay?” Dean says, cracking an egg into a bowl. 

“Of course.” Cas immediately sobers at the mention of his lost memories. “I wish I could remember them.”

“It’s not your fault, dude. Claire knows that, too.”

Dean rummages around in the drawer for a whisk, humming to himself as he cooks. He seems so in his element, Cas is almost jealous. Dean remembers where he fits into the world. Dean knows how to cook and he knows the people he’s close to and he knows how to sing songs that Cas can’t recall under his breath. Envy squeezes Cas’ throat until it feels like he’s suffocating, long, icy cold fingers gripping his neck with unrelenting pressure. His eyes flutter shut and he forces deep breaths through his nose until his throat opens up again, gulping down a mouthful of scalding coffee to disguise his distress.

“What are you making?” he asks quickly, desperate to distract himself.

“Pancakes,” Dean smiles, completely oblivious to Cas’ distress. “Claire can’t get enough of them, and I feel like I owe Kaia as many pancakes as she can eat.”

“Why’s that?”

Dean frowns, like he hadn’t meant to let that piece of information slip. “Uh, it’s a long story.”

Cas feels like mentioning the fact that he isn’t going anywhere, but he decides against it. Just in time too, as the doorbell rings only a few moments later. 

“Ah, shit,” Dean says, his hands covered in pancake batter. “Will you get it?”

When Cas swings the door open, he’s met with the two girls giggling as Claire messes with Kaia’s hair. “Hello,” he says, not sure exactly what to say to them.

“Oh, hi,” Kaia replies, batting Claire’s hand away. “You’re Cas, right?”

“So I’m told,” he mumbles, Claire already tugging Kaia towards the kitchen without sparing him a glance. 

Cas can’t help but feel like Claire is the strangest thing to come from his amnesia. Everyone else seemed to have a reason for how they treated him; he obviously had some shared history with Dean and Sam (not that they would tell him), but Claire was an enigma. Why would he know a teenage girl? He didn’t even know how old he was, but he certainly felt old enough to practically be her father. Not that he was, he didn’t think. 

For some reason, Claire loathed him, and he had no idea why. What could he have done to hurt the poor girl enough for her to hate him so much now?

“Hey Cas, you want pancakes or what?” Dean yells, and Cas realises he’s still stood by the open door. It strikes him, then, that it would be so easy to walk out. To walk away from whatever mess this is and just disappear into the sunset. To start a new life where everyone he met didn’t already know him.

“I’m coming,” he calls back, taking one last long look before he shuts the door.

{o0o}

Lunch isn’t quite as awkward as Cas expected it to be. Apparently, Claire is still refusing to acknowledge his existence, but Kaia is perfectly polite to him. Plus, Dean’s cooking is excellent.

“Wanna watch a movie?” Dean suggests after the girls leave to go into town for a while, and Cas can’t find a reason to say no.

According to Dean, the fact he’s lost his memory means it’s necessary for them to watch the classics all over again. Unfortunately, due to Jody’s limited DVD collection, their options are _Jurassic Park,_ the third _Indiana Jones_ film, or _The Holiday._ Dean pretends to gag when he sees the last option, tossing it onto the floor with a disgusted look.

“What’s wrong with that one?” Cas asks, picking it up from where Dean flinged it.

“It’s a chick flick!” he replies, seemingly offended Cas even has to ask. “‘Sides, it’s set at Christmas.”

Cas looks at it for a long moment, his eyes skimming back over the cases for the other two films. After only a moment of hesitation, he asks, “Can we watch it?”

Dean turns to him, his eyebrows practically disappearing up his hairline. “Seriously?”

“You did say I could pick.”

Dean huffs, looking longingly at _Jurassic Park_ before tossing it onto the coffee table _._ “Fine, but we’re watching some dude get chomped by a dinosaur tomorrow.”

Cas doesn’t bother replying; he’s found that if Dean has his mind made up about something, there’s absolutely nothing that anyone could do about it. He settles onto one side of the battered sofa, curling his feet up and drawing the colourful, knitted blanket up over his lap. He likes Jody’s cabin way more than he liked living in the bunker. There aren’t so many people there to crowd him and the windows remind him that the outside world exists. Nothing matches, either; the towels are all different colours, the cutlery is mismatched, the decor differs from room to room. He feels like it’s the kind of house he would like, if that was ever an option; one made up of a hundred different little things, a home made like a patchwork blanket.

Dean flops onto the other side of the couch, propping his feet up on the coffee table. He seems to conjure a bowl of popcorn out of thin air, grabbing a handful and shoving it messily into his mouth before offering Cas the bowl. The movie flickers on in the background as Cas copies Dean, gently snatching up a handful and cupping it close to his chest. It doesn’t have much of a taste, he decides, other than the excessive amount of salt Dean had sprinkled over the top, but he eats it in silence anyway, and when he’s offered the bowl again, he takes another handful.

Cas finds the film fascinating, and he spends most of the time peppering Dean with questions. Dean, of course, is happy to talk over the so-called garbage, even if he does seem to be secretly enjoying it. Somehow, their conversations tail off, and Cas finds himself so relaxed for the first time he can remember that he drifts off.

When he awakes, he finds that somehow he is now pressed up against Dean’s side, his head lolling on his shoulder. Dean is scrolling through his phone, looking at seemingly random news articles and texting his brother. He hesitates for a moment, glancing at the ‘sleeping’ man on his shoulder, thumb hovering over the screen, before he clicks on the gallery. 

Cas is sure Dean thinks he’s asleep as soon as he starts scrolling, because there is no way Dean intended for him to see all these pictures. There are at least a hundred of them; some with his brother, some of his car or a particularly tasty looking meal, plenty with a young man that Cas doesn’t recognise (his son, perhaps?), but the ones that really make Cas’ heart clench are the ones where his own face smiles back at him.

It’s a ridiculous sentiment, he thinks, to feel like he is intruding on moments that he supposedly lived through. But it is most certainly an intrusion, on that he has no doubt. The Cas in those pictures is not the same as the one who looks down at them on a cracked phone screen now. He seems… not _happier,_ exactly, but more free. That Cas knows exactly who he is and remembers eating that burger or sitting with Dean under the stars.

Then, it occurs to him for the first time, that maybe Dean and this past-Cas used to date.

It would explain so much, he decides. The way Dean grieved like a widow. The way he wouldn’t look him in the eyes. Why he seemed to find his lack of memories particularly hard to deal with. He mourned not only for the friend, like Cas had assumed up to this point, but for the love they had shared.

Cas needed to ask Sam. Immediately.

It was funny, he thought as he stretched out and yawned in a dramatic show of waking up, how much the Winchesters had managed to change his world. When your world is made up of a few weeks, a single family, and not a lot more, it was the little things that seemed to change your understanding of everything.

“I need the toilet,” Cas announces, sliding off the sofa in a movement that no one would describe as graceful. 

“You didn’t even make it to the end of the movie, dude,” Dean comments without looking up, his phone’s black screen gripped tightly in his hands.

Cas just shrugs and disappears into the direction of the bathroom, snatching his phone from his bed on the way there. He quickly sends a text to Sam: _Were Dean and I in a relationship?_

His phone rings almost immediately. “What makes you think that?” Sam’s voice asks, a pitch higher than it normally is.

“Am I right?” he responds, not bothering to explain himself.

“Well, I, uh… I don’t think- It’s not my place to say,” Sam stutters, tripping over his words.

“Sam,” Cas sighs, staring in the mirror. “Yes or no.”

“...No?” Sam says, finally, and that only confuses Cas more.

“No?”

“Well… I’m pretty sure you guys liked each other. You wouldn’t stop staring at each other. It was actually kind of creepy and I always got stuck in the middle-”

“Sam.”

“Right. Well I’m pretty sure that Cas - uh, you - confessed your feelings to Dean before you, y’know…”

Cas may not have had many conversations, but this definitely had to be the most exasperating one conceivable. “Lost my memory?”

“...Yeah, uh, that. But Dean wouldn’t say.”

There’s the sound of footsteps going down the hall, and Dean calls out, “Hey, the girls will be back soon so I’m gonna start on dinner.”

Cas waits until Dean is out of earshot before holding the phone back up to his ear. “I’ve got to go,” he says, hanging up without waiting for a response.

He stares at his reflection in the mirror and doesn’t see himself. He sees a Cas who has lived a life he remembers. He sees a man who doesn’t hide in a bathroom asking people questions he should know the answer to.

He stares at his reflection, and his reflection stares right back at him, unblinking.

{o0o}

Sure enough, by the time Cas exits the bathroom the girls are already sitting at the stools in the kitchen, chatting to each other. For some reason, they seem to find the topic of vampires fascinating, discussing in detail some kind of movie or book plot. Cas actually finds it quite intriguing, and hovers around the corner for a moment so he can hear the end of the conversation. He knows that as soon as he enters the room, the conversation will stop. Claire will seize up, and Kaia and Dean will be left to fill the gaps in the awkward silence.

Cas glances down the hallway, towards the door. How hard would it be for him to leave? It was only a few steps, a twist of a handle, a breath of fresh air. He could be long gone before they even noticed.

“Oh, hey Cas,” Dean says, turning the corner and bumping into him. “Thought you were in your room or something. I was coming to get ya.”

“I’m here,” he replies, offering up a smile he hoped looked sincere.

“Good,” Dean grins. “Thought you were gonna walk out on my world famous lasagna.”

Cas let Dean lead him into the kitchen. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

It’s obvious that Dean must have had some kind of conversation with Claire before coming to fetch him because she is considerably nicer when they sit down for dinner. She doesn’t go as far as referring to him by name or asking him any questions, but she doesn’t completely ignore him and passes him the salt without asking, too. Cas finds that he doesn’t really make relationships these days; just forms truces with people who supposedly know him.

It’s when Dean goes to fetch the pie that everything falls apart.

It starts with a knock at the door. “I don’t think we’re expecting anyone,” Cas says, answering Claire and Kaia’s puzzled looks.

“I’ll get it,” Claire offers, already heading to the door.

Then, there’s the sound of a window smashing. Kaia, the only other person at the table, leaps to her feet and sends Cas a worried glance. Dean’s already rushing in from the kitchen, seemingly on high alert. He exchanges a look with Kaia that Cas can’t decipher, before surreptitiously nodding to Cas and sliding her something behind his back.

There’s the sound of something crashing in the study - the bookcase, most likely - and Kaia is already running towards the sound without another look back. Claire isn’t far behind, appearing from the front door looking slightly worse for wear and breathing heavily.

“Is that blood?” Cas asks, concerned, but she’s already going after her girlfriend, waving four fingers behind her but not stopping otherwise.

Cas may not remember much about his old life, but he’s discovered that his instincts are generally impeccable. Right now, for example, they are screaming that something is very, very wrong and he feels his pulse quicken. “Dean, what’s going on?”

Dean’s already moving in the opposite direction, pulling Cas along with him. “Uh, let’s go to your room.”

Cas lets Dean yank him into the guest room, and he lets him lock the door behind them, but it’s when Dean starts packing Cas’ stuff up that he grabs his wrist and makes him stop. Dean looks Cas dead in the eyes, only a few inches between their faces. “Dean. Tell me what’s going on.”

Dean swallows, glancing down for a moment before meeting Cas’ eyes once more and jerking his arm out of Cas’ vice-like grip. _Cas, we’ve talked about this. Personal space?_ rings through his mind without context, and he takes a reflexive step backwards. _My apologies._

“Look, we’re just gonna get out of here, ‘kay? Go back to the bunker for a few days.” His eyes keep flitting to the doorway, which is currently doing a poor job of muffling the bangs and crashes coming from the other room.

“Pack your bag. I’m gonna get my stuff and… check on the girls.” Dean suddenly swivels to face Cas again with a severity that frightens him, just for a second. “Just… please stay here. Don’t leave this room, okay? Please,” he begs.

“Alright,” Cas agrees, unsure of what’s going on but terrified by the intensity of Dean’s request. Dean shoots him one last look to check he means it, before ducking out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him. Cas doesn’t move for a full minute, but when he does, he’s like a whirlwind. It’s not too hard to throw all his earthly possessions into the borrowed duffle bag, considering he doesn’t have many, but he does take the time to speedily fold his new t-shirts.

Then, there’s a piercing female scream from the hallway and Cas can’t stay alone in the room any longer. Grabbing his bag, he hesitates with his hand over the handle for only a second before bursting out into the hallway, but he can’t see anything unusual. 

“Dean?” he calls cautiously, slowly backing towards the door.

There’s the sounds of shuffling and angry whispers before Kaia pops out instead, her nose bleeding and a bruise already forming above her eyebrow. Steering him towards the door, she doesn’t answer any of his flurry of nervous questions before they step outside the cabin.

“It’s fine,” she says at last, unlocking Dean’s car. “There’s, uh, a… raccoon.”

“A raccoon,” Cas repeats incredulously, allowing her to escort him into the passenger seat.

She shrugs. “Yeah, a big one. Claire and Dean are, uh, dealing with it.”

“And that’s why you manhandled me into the car?”

“I didn’t-” She huffs. “Dean just doesn’t want you to get hurt. You’re recovering, or whatever.”

“Right.” Kaia hovers by the car door, unsure whether she should get in or go back to help. Her question is answered when there’s a loud _bang_ and then a _whoosh,_ and the cabin goes up in flames.

“Small fire!” Dean shouts, appearing from around the side of the building covered in blood. “I said start a _small_ fire!”

Claire - who appears to be holding a flamethrower - just shrugs. “‘S flammable, I guess.”

Dean drags a bloodstained hand over his face before scanning the area. When he spots Cas and Kaia safely sitting bemused in his car, he breathes a visible sigh of relief.

“So, who’s telling Jody?” he says, leaning on the car hood, “Because I sure as Hell ain’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're interested in the shirts, you can see the ones I found [here.](https://fanfic-corner.tumblr.com/post/644994554800570368/okay-all-im-saying-is-dean-convinces-human-cas-to)


	6. Chapter 6

A lot of weird things had happened in his time with the Winchesters, but this absolutely had to top it. There is no way - no matter what Dean and the girls insist - that it was a raccoon they fought off. First of all, it doesn’t take three people to fight off a raccoon, nevermind a flamethrower that ended up burning down an entire cabin. Secondly, if it was just a ‘raccoon’, why did Dean insist in escorting him out to the car? No one could be that worried about rabies with him but not give a shit when two teenage girls were involved.

Cas was seriously considering ignoring it and chalking the whole thing up to a weird, unexplained circumstance that he could forget and move past, if not for Jody’s reaction. He hadn’t spent much time with her, but from the short conversations they had shared and the way Dean and the girls had described her, he would imagine that she would be mad but fair about the cabin burning to the ground. Maybe he was expecting a few raised voices, maybe a demand to get the money for it to be fixed. He was not expecting for her to raise her eyebrows, exchange a look with Dean that he couldn’t decipher, and for her to nod and simply say, “We’ll have to find somewhere else for you fellas to stay then, I suppose.”

In the end, Cas didn’t have much time to ponder the strange circumstances involving the fire, because he was immediately thrown into house hunting, which was an interesting experience. It turns out that Sam had been squirrelling away money for some time without his brother’s knowledge, and he was more than happy (read: extremely insistent) for them to spend it on buying their own house nearby. Having never bought a house before - that he could remember anyway - Cas found the sheer number of options fascinating.

Dean, of course, had some reservations. Cas still didn’t know much about the nature of their relationship before his accident, but he gathered that although they were close, it would still be considered weird for them to buy a house together. In the end, Sam managed to convince him after an hour-long conversation away from Cas’ ears.

“Alright, then,” he announced, leaving the room that they had been holed up in. “Let’s buy a fucking house.” 

Dean was ridiculously picky when it came to the house he was going to purchase. Cas, in fact, was starting to think that the image of the perfect house he had in his mind didn’t actually exist, and they were going to end up stuck in the bunker forever. It had to be within an hour’s drive of the bunker, it had to have a garage, it had to have a kitchen and so on and so forth. His list of demands looked like it could be on one of those cartoons he was so fond of watching; Cas was always waiting for him to unfurl it and for it to span the length of the library.

After two weeks of looking, they did end up finding a house that met Dean’s standards. It was on the outskirts of Lebanon (“quiet, that’s good,”), it had a fully functioning kitchen (“I’ll make you a pie you actually get to eat this time, Cas,”), a huge backyard (“we’ll have to get some plants or shit, I guess,”) and it was ready to move into immediately, which Cas was pleased about. Last time, his stay in the bunker had been punctuated with his pleasant conversations with Eileen and the pity that accompanies someone recovering, but this time it had been much worse. The sooner he got out of there, the better.

He was surprised that Dean would agree to move in with him, though. Somehow, it felt much more permanent than staying in a cabin for a few weeks. The cabin had been somewhere to stay for a few weeks, a way to run away from the issue of Cas’ lost memories. A home felt more long-term; almost scarily like a promise of a future with the Winchesters. With Dean, specifically.

“We’ll have to get some furniture,” Dean suggests after they make the call to buy the house, and they drive out that very afternoon.

{o0o}

As it turns out, Dean and Cas have very different tastes. When finally given the chance to choose what his living quarters look like, Cas insists on comfort. He likes cute, soft things, and although he grumbles, Dean always buys something if he asks (generally speaking. He said no after three bee plushies, unfortunately). He picks the cosiest cushions and the thickest blankets, insisting on more than he actually needs because he can tell that Dean secretly wants one but is too insecure to buy it for himself.

Dean, however, goes for what he believes is stylish and masculine over comfort. He settles for a worn leather sofa (apparently it reminds him of his car) as well as too many rock posters for Cas to count. In fact, he makes Cas wait outside the lighting section until he returns ten minutes later, holding three boxes of neon lights. Two are for him - a creepy looking eye and a guitar - but he hands the third box to Cas. It’s a glowing white set of wings, and Dean’s eyes sparkle with amusement. 

“I don’t get it,” Cas says after a minute of desperately sifting through every interaction he has had with Dean in an attempt to understand the joke.

Dean’s face falls. “Sorry, I forgot you… y’know… forgot.”

Cas snorts and gently tosses the box onto the top of their overflowing shopping cart. “Very eloquent, Dean.”

“Oh, shut up.”

Before they leave, Dean also snags some guitar-shaped hooks while Cas sneaks three more succulents in cute pots into the cart. They manage to spend quite a lot, which Cas worries about until Dean tells him it’s fine.

“Sam gave us plenty, ‘kay? We’ll find a way to pay him back at some point.”

Cas isn’t sure how he could, but he nods anyway. “Alright.”

{o0o}

It’s the night before moving day, and although the week in between had flown by, Cas finds himself unable to sleep. He can’t help but overthink, worrying whether or not this is the right idea. His relationship with Dean is already rocky - in fact, he barely knows the man - and the only reason he is still helping Cas is because his brother persuaded him and he feels obligated to help the shell of the man he once knew.

Cas sits up abruptly. He can’t do this. There’s no way this is going to end well and he needs to leave _now._ He doesn’t even bother packing a bag, he just throws on one of his t-shirts - ‘ _dance contest winner!’_ \- and grabs a pair of shoes and gets up to leave.

Considering how many people live in the bunker, it’s surprisingly quiet. Cas is cautious as he walks towards the door, tiptoeing with his boots in hand, the floor cold on his feet, but there isn’t much reason. He gets all the way to the stairs without even the suggestion of another living creature making themselves known, where he sits to lace up his shoes.

That’s when he hears Eileen’s voice. “Cas?”

His head snaps up to see her standing a few feet away from him in her pajamas, a glass of water in her hand and her eyebrows raised. There isn’t really a way he can explain his way out of this one; he’s literally sitting by the door and putting his shoes on. 

Cas sighs. “It’s exactly what it looks like.”

She considers this for a minute. Cas is just about to repeat himself in case she didn’t catch it - it is dark after all - but she just carefully puts her glass on the map table and holds up a finger. “Give me one minute,” she says, waiting for his response to check he won’t just leave while she’s gone. Cas just shrugs.

She hurries from the room and reappears only a few moments later carrying two coats and her shoes. “It’s cold, put this on,” she tells him, handing him one of the jackets. She simultaneously slips her shoes and coat on with practiced efficiency before looking at him expectantly.

“What’s happening?” Cas asks finally, completely lost.

She rolls her eyes and gives him a gentle shove up the first step. “We’re going for a walk.”

Cas looks at her blankly. “What?”

Eileen swings the creaky bunker doors open and turns to him, the cold night air making him grateful for the coat. “We’re going for a walk together,” she explains, “and if you still want to leave when we come back, I’ll drive you to town myself. Deal?”

He looks past her, into the darkness of the night, and bobs his head. To be honest, he hadn’t thought his plan through much more than his instinct of _leave the bunker,_ and now that he was thinking about it properly he knew he wouldn’t have made it very far with his lack of planning. 

They set off walking side by side in silence, the cool air calming him. Cas looks up as he walks and he watches the stars, twinkling so far in the distance. There’s almost no light pollution all the way out here so the view is breathtaking, and they stop for a moment to admire the sky. Even though it is beautiful, the stars illuminating the neverending blackness like fairy lights, it makes him feel so small. He gets the sense that the Cas of the past was so much bigger than he is, that he was somehow _more_ with his memories. Now, he is left small and alone, stuck in the inky dark.

No, not alone; Eileen’s here with him, watching the stars by his side. She doesn’t look at him, doesn’t even acknowledge his presence, but she speaks anyway. “I get the feeling of wanting to escape,” she begins, not looking at him for a response. “I used to want to run away all the time. But no one can run forever.”

She glances at him, but he’s just staring at her, unmoving. Turning her head back to the stars and shutting her eyes, she continues. “You can be the best runner in the world, but no one can keep moving for that long. In the end, you have to decide whether or not the problem is worth running from, or whether - with some work - you can move past it.”

Cas thinks about it for a moment, turning the issue over in his mind. Could he work through this? The overwhelming urge to run is still there, bubbling beneath his skin and itching to put as much distance between him and the bunker as he could, but where does he go from here? If he goes back to bed right now, there is a house and a friend and too many cosy blankets waiting for him. If he runs… well, there is no telling what could happen, good or not. Does he take the risk?

Eileen turns to face him, searching his eyes. “What’s it gonna be? I’ll help you either way.”

He takes a deep breath before responding. “I think I’ll stay.”

She nods and they start the silent journey back to the bunker, every step putting Cas slightly closer to his new future.

{o0o}

The downside of Cas’ nighttime expedition is that when his alarm clock wakes him up - otherwise known as a pre-caffeinated Dean banging on his door - he’s exhausted. And, as it turns out, moving into a new house can be very stressful.

But, only a few hours later, he is sitting on his unmade bed in his new room and he has never felt so happy. There are boxes piled up around him and he can’t unpack properly until they go and get paint tomorrow, but he finally has a room of his own. He can’t prove it without his memories, obviously, but he has the overwhelming feeling that this is the first time he has ever had a room of his own. Which is ridiculous, because how could he never have had his own room before? But he found that nothing seemed to make sense these days, so he didn’t question it.

After he makes his bed and hangs his clothes in the wardrobe, he wanders downstairs to find Dean painting a strange symbol on the floor by the front door. It is scrawled in red spray paint and hard to make out from his angle behind the wall, but Dean seems to be drawing it with practiced ease, and Cas can’t help but wonder what the reason for this strange art project could be.

The next morning, when they go out to buy paint, one of the rugs Cas picked is covering it up perfectly and Dean doesn’t mention a thing.

When Cas finishes painting his room and unpacking some more of his boxes, he decides to go downstairs for a glass of water. On the mantelpiece in the living room he finds not one, but _three_ angel statues, all in varying sizes and poses. Dean doesn’t bring them up, so neither does Cas.

A few days later, when Cas has finally finished unpacking, he finds Dean in the kitchen sorting the contents of a duffle bag into the cabinets. He thinks nothing of it, excitedly telling his new roommate about his decorating skills, until he walks past and catches a flash of the contents; a flask labelled _‘HOLY WATER’_ on the top.

Over dinner - Dean’s homemade burgers, as promised - Cas decides he finally wants some answers. “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”

Dean looks up in surprise, but answers, “Sure. Shoot,” anyway.

“Are you religious?”

Dean chokes on his burger. It takes several painful looking gulps and the rest of his beer before he clears his throat and manages to croak out, “What?”

Cas shifts in his seat, but he’s not backing down now. “Well, you have all those angel statues. And I saw you had holy water. Plus, I’m pretty sure Sam mentioned something about praying once-”

“Dude, it’s okay, you don’t have to explain the question. I just wasn’t expecting it,” Dean interrupts, thumping himself on the chest. “I’m not exactly… _religious,_ I guess. Uh, it’s just kinda an... inside joke, I guess?”

“Oh,” Cas replies, staring at his burger.

Dean raises an eyebrow. “Not the answer you were looking for?”

“No, it’s not that. I-” He frowns. “I can’t put my finger on it. It’s like… a sense of loss, I suppose? Grief, almost, but I don’t know what it’s for.”

Dean takes another bite of his burger and chews thoughtfully, but doesn’t say anything. Cas considers whether or not Dean knows what his loss is for, but he ignores it. Perhaps, if just the echo of the memory is this painful, it is for the best that he doesn’t remember.

That night, when Cas walks past Dean’s door to go to bed he hesitates. Dean doesn’t turn around, never notices his presence, but Cas sees the man’s bare shoulder, and can’t shake the feeling there used to be a scar there. When he sleeps, he dreams of fire and pain and a dirt grave, and wakes to the echoing sound of exploding lightbulbs.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is some violence in this chapter, but I don't think it's too graphic, and it's nothing worse than what you see on the show. If you want more details, I'll put a more descriptive warning in this chapter's end notes :)

Considering how terrified he had been at the prospect of moving in with Dean, Cas finds himself settling into his new life surprisingly quickly. In fact, they even establish their own routine; Dean cooks all the meals and Cas washes the dishes, Dean looks after his Baby and Cas looks after his garden, and in the evening, they sit together and watch another film that Dean insists is a classic and that Cas absolutely has to see on pain of death.

He likes it, Cas decides, this gentle domesticity. He likes waking up in a room with windows. He likes waking up in a house he helped decorate, in a room that belongs to him and no one else. He never dares himself to think about the future, however; allowing himself to think that far ahead feels like it would jinx the happiness he has found here.

It’s a Saturday, when it happens. Dean has taken up on his promise to bake Cas a pie - an apple _and_ a cherry, because Cas wasn’t sure what flavour he would like - and Cas is tending to his plants. He enjoys tending the garden; the knowledge that it was him that coaxed these living things into growing and thriving fills him with joy. He is in the middle of watering a tansy - Dean had bought him a book on all the different plants so he knew how to care for them - when he notices that he has been out way longer than normal. Usually, Dean calls him in for dinner long before the sun starts to drop below the horizon, and it’s not like him to break the routine.

Frowning, he places the watering can back by the tap and opens the back door. “Dean?”

“Stay outside,” Dean says, his voice strangely smothered. “Call Sam!”

Cas hesitates, his hand on the door handle - Dean sounds like he is in some kind of trouble and he probably needs help, but should he do what he asks or run in to save him? In the heat of the moment, Cas decides to do as he is told and calls Sam, fidgeting nervously on the patio as he waits for him to pick up.

“This is Sam Winchester’s phone. If I’m not picking up, it’s probably for a good reason. If you have an emergency, please call my brother Dean, and if it’s not, please leave a message.”

“Sam,” Cas says urgently, “I’m not sure what’s going on but Dean sounds like he’s in trouble and he told me to call you. I’m in the garden… I think I’m gonna go in and see what’s going on. Call me if you get this. Uh, bye.”

Hanging up, he shoves his phone in his back pocket and slowly cracks the back door open, praying that it doesn’t creak. He creeps down the hall, listening for any indication of what’s going on, and stops halfway to the kitchen when he hears faint voices.

“Look, I’m sorry you went to Hell, but you can’t blame me,” Dean grunts, sounding pained.

Cas doesn’t recognise the British woman’s voice who responds. “Yes, I can.”

There’s a growl and then a horrible _ripping_ noise. Dean lets out a strangled yelp and Cas edges closer to the living room, not daring to peek into the room. He’s not sure what could cause a sound like that but there is no way it’s good.

“Please,” Dean pants, “just leave Cas out of this. You can do whatever you want with me, but just leave him be. He doesn’t even remember who he is, for Chrissakes!”

There’s a pause and then what sounds like a bark, and the woman laughs. “Oh, Deano, why don’t I ask him myself?” Then, a bit louder: “Castiel, darling, eavesdropping is rude. Why don’t you join us?”

Cas gulps and shoots a longing glance at the open back door, but he can’t leave Dean here alone. He cautiously pushes the door open and nearly vomits at the scene before him.

Dean is kneeling on the white crocheted rug that Cas had pestered him into buying - only it’s certainly less white than it was before, now stained an alarming shade of red. Dean himself is holding his arm at an awkward angle, and when he looks a little closer, Cas can see there is a whole chunk missing from his shoulder. If Cas didn’t know better, he would guess that something large had taken a bite out of him.

Standing beside him is the woman who had beckoned him in. Even Cas can tell she’s conventionally attractive, with her slicked back brown hair and dramatic makeup along with her wine red pantsuit. She eyes him, raising an eyebrow and looking him up and down, before flicking her hair over her shoulder.

“Bela,” Dean growls, “leave him out of it. This is between you and me.”

Bela studies her cherry-coloured nails, not bothering to so much as glance at Dean. “Clearly you care for the man,” she muses, “so I beg to differ.”

She saunters towards Cas, the diamonds on her choker blinding him as they sparkle in the light, and Cas watches with horror as her eyes flicker and turn completely black. He can see his own terrified expression reflected in those pools of darkness as he watches Dean struggle against invisible bonds, unable to move from his position on the floor no matter how hard he tries.

Bela comes so close to him that Cas can feel her icy cold breath on his face and when he doesn’t back away, her mouth twists into a grin. “I’m sure this will hurt Dean more than you,” she whispers into his ear, backing away to see the fear flash through his features before snapping her fingers. 

Suddenly, time seems to slow down. Everything is in hyperfocus; Cas can hear every _thud_ of his panicked heart, can see every drop of blood fall to the floor where Dean struggles, can feel the foul breath on his leg before he feels the invisible teeth rip through his jeans. In a moment, he’s on the floor, some invisible creature eagerly tearing into his flesh and a scream rising from his throat.

As he lies on the floor of the house that he had begun to love, Cas wonders if this is how he dies. He is going to be ripped apart by some nameless beast on the rug he had begged Dean to buy, the only life he knows being filled with confusion and the knowledge that he will never live up to the man he doesn’t remember being.

“Jack,” Dean begs, and Cas latches onto his words even as Dean’s voice seems to grow farther and farther away. “I don’t know if you can hear this because you haven’t been answering, and I know you said hands off, but I really need your help, kiddo.”

Bela laughs, a cruel, vicious noise. “Please. Like he’s going to save you.”

Dean ignores her. “It’s Cas, okay? You don’t have to help me, but he’s basically your dad, so please. Please help him.”

Cas’ vision goes white and he wonders for a second if you really do see a blinding light as you are dying, but instead of bleeding out and moving onto whatever afterlife awaits him, the light molds into the shape of a young boy. It’s almost impossible to tell his age - he looks like a young twenty year old but something in Cas’ gut says he is much younger than that - and he is wearing a white denim jacket. His eyes glow gold and he holds out two arms, one towards Cas and one towards Bela.

The first wave of light strikes Bela in the chest and she throws her head back with a scream, smoke pouring from her mouth before she crumples to the floor. The second hits Cas, and instead of the pain he is expecting, he is filled with a sense of warmth and comfort that seems almost familiar. It envelops him, wrapping him in a loving embrace as his skin knits itself back together and the blood evaporates from his clothes.

Cas sits up, disorientated, in time to see the boy gently place his hand on Dean’s wound and he watches as it heals itself, his shoulder knitting back together as if by magic.

“What,” Cas finally manages, “the fuck is going on?”

Dean isn’t listening, instead pulling the boy into a tight hug, burying his head in his shoulder. “It’s good to see you, kiddo.”

“Sorry I didn’t answer your prayers,” he responds, sounding genuinely apologetic. “I was busy rebuilding Heaven!”

“You were what- Actually, you know,” Dean decides, shaking his head, “can you tell me later?”

“Sure.”

Dean shoots a worried look at Cas and drops to his knees beside him, running his hands worriedly over his face. “You okay?”

“Yes?” Cas asks, genuinely not sure. “But I’m not sure how.”

“Oh, I forgot you had amnesia!” The kid exclaims, gently bashing himself in the face like he was stupid for forgetting something so important. “My name’s Jack. I’m basically your son, but my biological dad is Lucifer. I’m God now, so I healed you!”

Cas blinks at him dazedly. “What?”

“Jack, maybe not-” Dean starts, but Jack’s already on a roll.

“That was a demon. Her name’s Bela Talbot. I think she’s been trying to overthrow Auntie Rowena - oh, she’s the Queen of Hell by the way - because she doesn’t like her, and she thought the best way to gain support would be to kill Dean!”

“...Why?” Cas ventures, really not sure what is going on.

“Because he’s a Winchester, obviously!” Jack beams. “Sam and Dean have stopped at least three apocalypses and killed Lucifer and were friends with the previous King of Hell-”

“I wouldn’t say ‘friends’,” Dean grumbles.

“-Plus, they defeated Chuck!”

Cas is suddenly hit with a wave of nausea. There are a thousand words on the tip of his tongue, a hundred memories that he can feel swirling around him like a tornado. He’s stuck in the eye of the storm, reaching out desperately to try and grab some debris to hold onto so he can make sense of what’s going on, but everything is just out of his grasp.

_“But not you. Not the angel off the line with the crack in his chassis.”_

“Cas?” Dean asks, concerned. “You okay?”

Cas finds he can’t answer, his mind bursting with information. “I’m…”

_“I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition.”_

_“I’m your huckleberry.”_

_“I’m dead to you.”_

He tries again. “I-”

_“I learned that from the pizza man.”_

_“I hunted, I rebelled, I did all of it for you.”_

“Dean…”

_“Dean and I do share a more profound bond.”_

_“This isn’t funny, Dean! The voice says I’m almost out of minutes.”_

_“You changed me, Dean.”_

Cas takes one long look at Dean’s face, memorising the constellations of freckles and the green nebulas in his concerned eyes, before he falls limp in his arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cas and Dean get attacked by a hell hound, which seriously injures Dean's shoulder and nearly kills Cas, however they are both magically healed at the end because this is Supernatural and their son is God.


	8. Chapter 8

“Cas? Cas, come on buddy, wake up!”

Castiel’s eyes flutter open, and he groans as Dean’s hands nervously roam across his face, checking for any injury. His head feels like a watermelon that’s been hit with a sledgehammer. With every blink, he seems to see a new scene playing in his mind; a seemingly impossible fight, a snippet of a conversation, flashes of images that make no sense to him. He watches himself walk into a lake, he sees the fires of Hell, he feels himself being stabbed in the back. 

“Dean?” he tries weakly, when the impossible memories start to slow and he can form a coherent thought.

“Cas?” Dean’s tone is more gentle than Cas can ever remember hearing it, and he carefully helps him into a sitting position. “You got me worried there for a second. You alright?”

Cas tries to process all the things running through his mind, but he can’t find any logical explanation for what he sees. Angels and demons, vampires and werewolves and a hundred different monsters, even God himself… it can’t be true. And, if it can’t be true, then what is he seeing?

He swallows, trying to focus, and that’s when he realises that there is one common thread among each of these images: Dean Winchester. Everything seems to click into place - hadn’t he noticed Dean acting strangely ever since that first day in the hospital - and his mind immediately offers up a hundred different instances to prove his point. Dean praying, but claiming he isn’t religious. Dean spray painting satanic sigils onto the floorboards. Dean’s bag of weapons and holy water. Even the whole event at Jody’s cabin... He'd never really believed Kaia’s story of a vicious raccoon, but he had assumed there was a logical explanation for it, and here it was.

Dean had been playing him all along. He had refused to tell him about his identity, about his past; pretended to be his friend to get close to him and now he had drugged him or something to confuse him.

Cas slowly shuffles away from Dean, moving backwards along the cold floorboards until his back hits the leather sofa Dean had picked.

“Cas?” Dean asks, following him over to the sofa. “You wanna sit on the couch? What’s going on?”

“Get away from me,” Cas croaks, squeezing his eyes shut to try and drown out the nausea that is still plaguing him.

Dean doesn’t move. “Buddy, I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s happening. Are you hurt?”

Cas presses himself into a tight ball, his hands slipping underneath the sofa to support his weight. That’s when he feels it; there is a gun taped under the bottom of the seat, and he surreptitiously wraps his hand around it.

“Leave me alone,” he says to Dean, gently tugging it free from its hiding place.

Dean scoots back a bit, but not enough for Cas’ liking. “C’mon, man, what’s up with you? You’re freaking me out a bit here.”

That’s when Cas moves, throwing himself to his feet and ignoring the way the corner of his vision turns black. The gun wobbles in front of him, vaguely pointed in Dean’s direction as he waits for his eyes to focus again. 

Dean backs up properly this time, hurt in his eyes and his hands thrown up in surrender. “Woah, hold on a sec-”

“What did you do to me?” Cas demands, furrowing his brows in frustration.

Dean raises his eyebrows. “What?”

“What. Did. You. Do. To. Me,” Cas repeats, jabbing the gun in Dean’s direction to punctuate each word.

“Okay, just calm down, alright,” Dean tries to placate, “I didn’t _do_ anything-”

“You’re lying,” Cas accuses.

“Look, I genuinely don’t know what the fuck is going on,” Dean replies, “Just… put the gun down. Please.”

“Not until you tell me what you did to me.”

They are at a stalemate, Cas realises. Unless Dean suddenly drops his innocent act, he’ll never find out what is happening to him, and he thinks he finally deserves some answers. All these months, he truly believed that maybe there was a reason for why no one would tell him about his past life - he had even thought it might be better for him not to know! - but now the truth was in sight, and he was not going to pass up the opportunity.

Cas clicks the safety off on the gun and doesn’t question how he knows how to do that. “Dean, start talking.”

“Shit, I don’t know what you want me to say!” he responds, a hint of panic in his voice.

“The truth.”

Dean shifts nervously, nibbling on his lip for a moment. “Alright, but only if you put the gun down.”

Ha. As if he would lose the advantage he currently has. “No.”

They lock eyes for a minute, the tension in the room unbearable. The only sound other than their rapid breathing is the ticking of the grandfather clock Cas had begged Dean to buy. It reminded him of a bomb, each second a countdown to the inevitable explosion. This situation only had two outcomes; Cas got the truth, or Cas shot Dean.

Dean swallows. “You’re an angel. Or, you were, anyway. You dragged me out of Hell and then you worked with us and saved my ass more times than I can count… and somewhere along the way, you became family.”

“Right,” Cas says incredulously, “And how did I lose my memory.”

“You, uh…” Dean stutters, “you sacrificed yourself for me. The only way I could get you back was to remove your grace, and apparently that affected your memories somehow.”

“My grace,” Cas scoffs, “You really expect me to believe this?”

“Well it’s the freakin’ truth,” Dean snaps, “so if you don’t believe me, you may as well fucking shoot me. Not much left to live for,” he adds, dropping his hands to his sides in defeat.

The gun is still gripped tightly in Cas’ shaking hand when the next onslaught of memories hits, and they seem much more recent than the others. He sees the boy that saved him before - Jack, his son - and he sees Sam and Eileen and a person he knows is Death, and then he sees a room.

Cas is fairly sure it’s in the bunker - it has a similar style to the rest of the place, and is suitably gloomy from the lack of windows - but he doesn’t recognise it from his brief stay there. There is a bookcase behind him and a chair in the middle of the room, but the sparse decoration isn’t what captures his attention. 

Dean stands before him, the bags from under his eyes gone, but an expression of resigned dread fills Cas’ heart with pure fear. Somehow, it strikes him that the man is still beautiful; even the despair clouding his features is uniquely Dean Winchester.

There is a loud bang from behind him, but before he can turn to investigate the source of the ominous pounding, Dean starts to speak. “She’s gonna get through that door.”

Cas hears his own voice reply unbidden. “I know.”

“And then she’s gonna kill you, and then she’s gonna kill me.”

There’s something in Dean’s voice, or perhaps some deep-seated intuition, that tells him that that statement is irrevocably true. The scene fast forwards then, his limbs moving as he is puppeteered around the room, holding a conversation that moves too fast for him to hear but that he still knows by heart anyway. Instinctively, he somehow knows that he is dying.

Tears are tracking down his face as time slows back to its normal pace, Cas and Dean sharing a long look before Dean speaks again. “Why does this sound like a goodbye?”

Even though he knows his death is coming, even though he is crying, Cas still smiles. “Because it is.”

Dean’s head tilts, begging him not to say the thing that had gone unspoken between them for so long. It had been twelve years; twelve long years of suffering and blood and betrayal and camaraderie, and Cas had kept his truth a secret for too long. If he was going to die, if he was going to sacrifice himself, he deserved to speak his heart.

“I love you.”

Dean swallows, tears starting to form in his eyes, glittering against the dim background of the room. “Don’t do this, Cas,” he begs, but Cas hears what he is really trying to say. _Don’t leave me, Cas. Don’t die for me, Cas. I love you too, Cas._

He places one hand on Dean’s shoulder, allowing himself this one touch as a last comfort before he dies. “Goodbye, Dean,” he says finally, searching the man’s face for a moment before throwing him to safety.

As the Empty takes him, Cas knows that no matter what happens next, there is no way he could ever regret this. He had saved his son and the love of his life, and freed himself in the process. Even with his final breath, he was smiling.

“Cas? Cas,” comes a faint voice, and then much louder, “CAS!”

The shout shocks him back into his own body with a horrifying _bang_. He doesn’t mean to. He swears he doesn’t. His finger isn’t even supposed to be on the trigger. It hadn’t even crossed his mind to actually shoot Dean. 

The gun clatters to the ground. “Dean?”


	9. Chapter 9

There is blood on his hands, and more blood on the rug, and he is shouting with no response. Then, there are familiar hands grabbing him and lifting him away from Dean, and a worried face and a call for an ambulance.

“What happened?” Cas hears, Sam’s worried voice floating around him. “I need you to tell me what happened.”

Cas can’t form a coherent response, his mind still whirling and the taste of gunsmoke and blood still on his tongue. “Shoot - I didn’t mean to, I swear, I didn’t mean it - and now he’s going to die…”

“It’s alright,” Sam says, his voice unerringly calm. “It’s going to be alright.”

{o0o}

Somewhere in the distance, there is beeping. Cas is dimly aware that he should find it annoying, but it’s not his first time being in a hospital, and the regular noise is reassuring, in its own way. It’s the only reminder that the unconscious body beside him is still alive, his heart still beating.

“He was lucky,” the nurse had said after he came back from his operation. “The bullet only hit his shoulder. He should make a full recovery, with time.”

Cas can’t help but worry, though. The last 24 hours had gone by in a blur of confusion and panic and hospitals and hurried explanations, and the adrenaline was finally starting to wear off. Even with his head drooping and his mind feeling like it was wrapped in cotton wool, Cas’ hand never left Dean’s.

He was resigned to his fate, at this point. Even with most of his memories back and having passed the nurse’s quick once over when they had arrived, his relationship with Dean - platonic or otherwise - was practically unsalvageable at this point. When he had explained what had happened to Sam - about Bela, about Jack, about his memories coming back and the gun - he had insisted it wasn’t Cas’ fault, but who else was to blame? It was him who had held it, him who had pressed the trigger. You couldn’t get much more at fault than that.

Although he remembered most things now (well, he supposed there wouldn’t really be a way to know if he was missing something or not) his memories were still all over the place. He had difficulty putting them in order or recalling a sequence of events, so for now, they simply floated about his mind in a bewildering whirlpool of emotions and snippets of images. It was like a jigsaw that hadn’t yet been put together; he needed time and patience to slot them into the right place, and he didn’t really have the focus he needed for that right now.

Dean’s eyelids fluttered, not quite open but not quite shut, and he groaned. His hand experimentally squeezes Cas’, and Cas moves it away as if he had been electrocuted. “Hey, Cas,” Dean croaks, grinning weakly and cracking open an eye to take a look at him.

“Dean!” Cas exclaims, his tiredness immediately replaced by concern. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Dean replies, his sentence punctuated by a nasty sounding cough. Cas raises an eyebrow, and he chuckles. “Well, obviously I’ve been better, but I’m not dead, so…”

“Good.” 

There’s an awkward silence for a moment, both of them working up to what they want to say, and they both start speaking immediately.

“I’m really sorry, Dean. I can collect my things and move out before you’re out of the hospital.”

“Y’know, I can kinda see why you’d thought I kidnapped you… Wait, what?”

Cas shuffles in the plastic chair, his back starting to ache and his eyes fixed on the ground. “I’ll leave it, if you want. You did buy it. But I can leave before you’re discharged so I don’t cause any more trouble than I already have.”

“You’re leaving?” Cas doesn’t dare look at him, but Dean’s voice sounds hurt.

“I shot you.”

“Oh, come on,” Dean says, exasperated. “I’ve done a lot worse to you. Hell, you’ve done a lot worse to me, and we’ve always worked through it. Although I suppose,” he scoffs, “you don’t even remember that now.”

Cas is quiet for a moment. “I have all my memories back.”

Dean flounders for a minute, attempting to sit up in his excitement before wincing and aborting the movement. “Really?”

“Yes. Although, I still can’t make sense of most of them,” Cas responds, Dean’s enthusiasm encouraging him to finally look up. “I think there’s a lot for me to catch up on.”

Dean lies back on the bed, his hand reaching out for Cas’ once more. They take a moment to recall the journey that got them there; the battles, the hardships, the deaths. Maybe, Cas thinks, it’s time for the rest of their lives to finally begin.

“Why would you rescue me from the Empty?” Cas asks out of the blue, his voice small. He had never intended to deal with the consequences of his confession, and he is concerned that maybe it will strain their relationship more than it already has. It has been twelve years, and even at the end, Dean has never indicated that he was romantically interested in Cas.

Dean frowns for a second, an answer on the tip of his tongue, but then he smirks. “Good things do happen, Cas.”

“Not in my experience.” Cas looks up and locks eyes with Dean, a small smile on his face.

“What’s the matter?” Dean finishes, “You don’t think you deserve to be saved?”

They stay there, eyes shining with matching grins, each remembering that night from so many years ago. When Cas had been Castiel, the terrifying angel of the Lord who had made dramatic entrances and had seen into Dean’s soul. He had never seen anything like it; in fact, he still hadn’t. Even God couldn’t shine as brightly as the Righteous Man, in Cas’ eyes.

Abruptly, Dean bursts out laughing. “Dude, I cannot _believe_ you made me crawl out of my own grave.”

Cas gives him a wry smile. “That was an accident.”

They are both giggling now, and they laugh and laugh until Cas’ sides ache and Dean ends up having a coughing fit. Cas vows, in that second, that no matter what happens, he will always try and be this happy from now on. He thinks he deserves it. In fact, they both do.

Another memory pops to the forefront of Cas’ mind, a more recent one. It’s blurry, certainly more faint than any other he had experienced, but he still manages to make it out. 

He is in a graveyard. His head is bleeding, but he can’t find the strength to bring up a hand to wipe it away. He lies there for a few minutes, the sound of the wind and the thumping in his head and someone else’s heavy breathing the only thing breaking the silence.

Someone starts to laugh, and Cas turns his head just enough to recognise Dean lying a few feet away from him. Dean rolls over to face him, a wide grin on his face. “Hey, you never gave me the chance to say it, man.”

_Say what?_ Cas wonders, but he’s back in his seat in the hospital, the real Dean looking up at him with concern.

“You alright?” he asks, absentmindedly rubbing his thumb over the back of Cas’ mind.

Cas swallows. “Just a memory.”

Dean raises an eyebrow. “A good one?”

“I’m not sure.” Cas considers it for a moment, and then decides just to tell him. “It was foggier than the rest… we were in a graveyard. You said you were going to say something, but I don’t know what it is.”

Dean blushes, suddenly finding a spot on the ceiling incredibly interesting. 

“What did you want to say, Dean? You can tell me now.”

He mutters something unintelligible into the side of his pillow, and Cas smirks. “Sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

“I said,” Dean practically shouts, turning to face him once more, “that I love you too, dumbass.”

Cas stares at him. “Oh,” he replies, breathless.

Dean softens a little and winks at him. “Wanna move back in with me, babe?”

Cas raises an eyebrow. “I must warn you, I have some memory issues and can’t be held liable for shooting you again, _darling._ ”

“And I’ve been repressing my emotions since I was four years old and have been told I’m insufferable.”

“We’re a strange pair, aren’t we?” Cas comments, but he’s smiling.

“Never stopped us before,” Dean points out.

Cas leans down until their faces are only inches apart. “Then I think it’s time for retirement, my love.”

Castiel didn’t expect his first time kissing Dean Winchester to be in a hospital, but that doesn’t make it any less perfect.


	10. Epilogue

Visiting the bunker is a strange experience, Cas decides. He had been living as another person for months, and to have the strange blur of memories from his years of being here and the weeks he had hated living here is confusing.

Dean, of course, is by his side the entire time, even if he is on an extraordinary amount of painkillers and has his arm bandaged up.

“It’s good to have you back,” Sam greets them, thumping Cas on the back. It’s only when he takes a few more wobbly steps forward that he spots it, the five names illuminated by a halo of lamplight.

_S.W. D.W. M.W. CASTIEL. JACK._

This time, when he traces his fingers over the etchings, he feels his heart swell. Dean stands with him as his fingers skim over each letter, grinning widely. “You’re a part of the family now, like it or not.”

Cas smiles softly and turns to face him. “Why Castiel, not Cas?”

Dean blushes and his eyes dart to the floor. “Sam and I couldn’t agree on how to spell it,” he mumbles.

Cas raises his eyebrows, but chuckles at Dean’s embarrassment all the same. “Well, you can’t deter me that easily.”

“Come on then, let’s get our shit and get out of here then.” 

It doesn’t take long to pack them up, even with Dean injured and Cas still sorting through his memories, since most of their stuff had already been moved to the house. Dean allows himself a minute, though, just to stand inside his room. 

The bunker is the only permanent home he remembers having since he was four years old, and although he knows there is another one waiting for him, it still feels strange to leave it. In this life, you took small comforts wherever you could get it, even if it is just in the familiarity of your own mattress over an infinite number of motel rooms.

“Dean?” Cas asks, sticking his head around the door. He hesitates when he enters the room, however, and Dean doesn’t realise why until he follows Cas’ line of sight. There, on the back of the desk chair, is the jacket he had worn when - well, the jacket with the handprint on. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to wash it after Cas’ death, and it was the last thing he had to pack up before they left.

“I’m sorry,” Cas says quietly, eyes never leaving the now dried and flaky handprint. “I didn’t mean to cause you all this pain.”

Dean crosses the room in three quick strides. “Don’t apologise, sweetheart,” he replies, gently tipping Cas’ chin up so their eyes met. “You’re here now, that’s all that matters.”

“But-”

“Nuh-uh, no buts,” Dean interrupts, wrapping his arms around his angel until he is sure Cas has got the message. “Come on, then, retirement awaits.”

“To after,” Cas smiles, the promise of a future he never thought he’d get filling up his heart.

Dean grins back down at him, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. “To after.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading!! I don't have a plan for any sequels in this universe, but I am currently working on another angsty Destiel fic, so if you want updates, you can find me at [@fanfic-corner!](https://fanfic-corner.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Once again a big thank you to everyone who helped me write this, whether you were invested in the raccoon, helped motivate me through a 3k writing sprint, and to whoever said "every lesbian deserves a flamethrower", I couldn't have done this without you :)


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